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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29196903">Toadhunter</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/rodsantos/pseuds/rodsantos'>rodsantos</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Amphibia (Cartoon)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Military, Gen, Guns, Military, Original Character - Anthony Boonchuy - Freeform, Soldiers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 04:27:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,891</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29196903</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/rodsantos/pseuds/rodsantos</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A Special Forces operator stalks a group of toads, hoping to find information about his missing sister.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Anne Boonchuy &amp; Original Character(s), Anne Boonchuy &amp; Sasha Waybright</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Toadhunter</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>A quick and dirty gift for the madmen of r/Amphibia! Idea popped into my head and I just had to run with it. All credit to u/2020PeterHK for creating this AU, and I hope you enjoy.</p><p>More information about this AU: <br/>https://www.reddit.com/r/amphibia/comments/kttg73/bow_before_the_antonomicon/<br/>https://www.reddit.com/r/amphibia/comments/kavigb/if_anne_has_an_older_bro_anthony_with_her_in/</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Two hours. Two hours he had been tracking the red-eyed bastards. Three hours of listening to their every footstep, every rattle of their wagon wheels on the potholes, every grating laugh as they boasted of their exploits to each other.</p><p>Ant wasn't sure where their pride came from. They were poorly-disciplined thugs with less brains than their non-sentient counterparts back home, swaggering about as if they were the greatest warriors in all the world. None of them had the slightest idea of the danger which lurked in their wake, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.</p><p>As the sun dipped towards the horizon, the toads began to rumble among themselves about bedding down for the night. They steered their wagon off the opposite road, detouring into the grassland beyond to find a place to camp out. Ant slackened off his pace, allowing some distance to open up between himself and them. They wouldn't go far, anyway.</p><p>Satisfied that they were out of earshot, he resumed his painstaking pursuit. Working his way to the roadside, he lowered himself down to one knee in the shadows. His hand went to the grip of the carbine slung across his chest, and he looked up and down the road, straining his ears for the telltale sound of approaching travelers.</p><p>Nothing, save for the sigh of the breeze rustling the grass. They were alone, he and his quarry, exactly how he wanted it.</p><p>He darted across the dirt road, quickly but quietly. On the opposite side, he melted into the darkness once more, invisible to all but those who knew where to look. Regaining the trail was a simple exercise. All he had to do was follow the tracks churned into the field by the wheels of their heavily-laden wagon.</p><p>"...you shoulda 'eard her scream, Benson. Hollered like a snail in heat when we carted her jewels away. I said to her, 'Miss, ya should be grateful we didn't leave you with your skull all smashed in!'. But she kept at it. Legend has it, if you listen 'ard enough, you can still hear her screaming."</p><p>At the sound of the voice, Ant dropped to his stomach, feeling the moisture from the damp ground seep into the front of his fatigues. They had set up camp closer than he had expected. Judging by what he heard of their laughter, they weren't much further than thirty meters to his front, somewhere past the patch of tall grass which obscured his vision.</p><p>It was his window of opportunity. His targets were relaxed, off their guard. Their camp was isolated from the road, giving him enough time to deal with them before anyone passing by could interfere. Now it was just a matter of getting into position.</p><p>The final approach was an energy-sapping elbow crawl through the mud, carbine cradled safely against his upper arms. Progress was slow, as he tried not to disturb the grass and alert the ones he was trying to ambush. Every few yards, he halted, flattening himself to the ground. He surveyed his surroundings carefully, listening for any sign that he had been detected. His targets may have been primitive, but he had no idea if they possessed heightened senses. They were predators too, after all, and Mother Nature just loved her surprises.</p><p>The sound of raucous conversation grew louder and louder as he creeped onward. Wood crackled and popped. Smoke met his nose, mingled with the smell of something else roasting. They were preparing a hearty dinner.</p><p>Finally, Ant reached the edge of the campsite, peering through a clump of thatch grass at his targets. Four hostiles. One had his back to him, sitting on a log a barely ten feet away. Two conversed by the cooking fire, keeping watch on a massive grasshopper roasting on a spit. The last was at the far side of the camp, standing beside the group's wagon and tethered pack animal.</p><p>Toads, each four-and-a-half feet tall and muscular. From what little information Ant had been able to put together, they had once been from a unit of the local army, tasked with enforcing the rule of law across Frog Valley. Their headquarters had been destroyed by rebels, scattering the leaderless toads far and wide. Many, like this bunch, had turned to banditry.</p><p>Looking at them, it wasn't hard to imagine how they'd been defeated. They were ragged and unshaven—something in their bizarre physiology which allowed them to grow facial hair. You could always tell the state of a soldier's discipline by how they maintained their equipment. Even if everything had gone to hell, a competent one always kept his gear in proper shape. By contrast, the toads' armor plate was filthy, and their steel helmets were speckled with rust.</p><p>Playground bullies with pointy weapons. They might've been intimidating enough to harass a few civilians and make away with their belongings, but they wouldn't stand a chance against a trained fighting force. And that was exactly what he was.</p><p>Ant tensed, ready to spring. He slowly brought the carbine up to his shoulder, flipping the selector switch from safe to semi-auto. The red dot of his sight was firmly locked on his first target.</p><p>There was a long suppressor screwed into the barrel of his carbine, but in the relative silence of the past few hours, Ant's first shot could as well have been an artillery blast. The first toad never knew what hit him. A slug exploded through his skull in a puff of red, and he slumped forward.</p><p>By the time they realized that they were under attack, the second one was also dead. He took the roasting grasshopper with him as he fell, crashing sideways into the campfire.</p><p>His conversation partner lunged for his sword, still in its scabbard down beside an unfolded bedroll. The toad never got there. He staggered back, webbed toes clutching at two bleeding holes in his breastplate.</p><p>Ant placed another round between the glowing eyes, but didn't linger to watch him fall. He advanced deeper into the campsite, muzzle trained on the survivor.</p><p>"Freeze!" bellowed Ant. "Don't fucking move!"</p><p>The last toad desperately rummaged through the pile of loot stacked atop the wagon, coming out with a hatchet. He brandished it above his head, attempting to scare the intruder off.</p><p>Ant took aim, carefully drawing a bead. He needed this one alive. As the toad surged forward, slashing out with the hatchet, he gently squeezed the trigger. The toad shrieked, tumbling to the ground. Blood oozed from a gash below his shattered knee, and he thrashed in agony on the muddy grass.</p><p>"Told you to freeze." Ant safetied his carbine, allowing it to hang around his neck by the sling. "Should've taken your chance."</p><p>"What—" sputtered the toad. "What did you do to me?"</p><p>"Ah, you'll live for now. Suck it up, you pussy."</p><p>"You're...you're one of those..."</p><p>"Think the term you're looking for is 'evolved being'." Ant drew his combat knife from its sheath on his hip. striding purposefully up to the fallen hostile. The polished steel glinted wickedly in the firelight, and the pain on the toad's face quickly dissolved into horror. There was something visceral about a razor-sharp blade, a primal terror that even a gun couldn't replicate.</p><p>Trailing a streak of blood in his wake, the toad made a pitiful attempt to crawl away. Ant placed the tip of his boot on his wound and ground down, eliciting another scream.</p><p>"Where I'm from, schoolchildren dissect your kind in laboratories. Helps kids understand anatomy, you know."</p><p>"What do you want? Take the our loot and go! Please!"</p><p>"Been a while since I was in school. How did we do it again?" Ant leaned down, gently pricking the toad's chin with the point of his fighting knife. "Oh, yeah. I seem to remember the first cut. Long, vertical slice from throat to asshole."</p><p>"Noooooo! Please! I'll do anything! Anything you need!"</p><p>"You met someone who looks like me, maybe a month ago. What can you tell me about her?"</p><p>"Do you mean Lieutenant Waybright?"</p><p>Waybright. That name was familiar. "First name?"</p><p>"B...Benson. My name's Benson."</p><p>"No, you idiot." Ant dug his sole into the wound, and the toad yelped again. "Waybright's first name."</p><p>"Sasha! Sasha Waybright! Please, for the love of Frog!"</p><p>Then Ant remembered. Waybright was the name of a stuck-up old money family back home, with a mansion in the Sacramento suburbs. Sasha was their youngest daughter, the latest spoiled princess of the robber baron dynasty.</p><p>Anne loved talking about her. Whenever he'd found the time to read the emails she'd sent him, Sasha was a frequent topic. Somehow or another, his sister had struck up a friendship with her after he'd shipped out.</p><p>He didn't exactly approve. There was something shifty, manipulative, about how Sasha talked to people, even at such a young age. Her great-great-grandfather would've been proud, but Ant deeply distrusted the kid. He had been tempted to warn Anne to cut off her friendship, but that kind of advice wasn't really something you could send by email. Either way, he'd figured that Anne was tough enough to handle herself.</p><p>Now he regretted not trusting his instincts. The worst-case scenario for him had been juvie. If Sasha was involved in this mess, she was probably the reason why his sister had been sucked into this shithole alternate dimension.</p><p>"<em>Lieutenant</em> Waybright, eh?" The kid couldn't have been much older than thirteen, or maybe fourteen. What the hell was she doing as an officer in the toad militia?</p><p>"Yes, yes!" The toad struggled to pull himself away from the blade, but Ant kept him firmly pinned. "She's Captain Grime's second-in-command!"</p><p>"I suppose nothing about that kid surprises me anymore. Anyway, I'm not after her. You've met another human, too. Name's Anne Boonchuy, maybe around the same age as your Lieutenant Waybright. I think they were friends."</p><p>"I know her too!" gasped the toad. "She led the rebels when Toad Tower fell! She fought the Lieutenant on the roof and won!"</p><p>"Well, fuck me," muttered Ant. Despite his worry, a tinge of pride had crept into his voice. Anne really was a tough cookie. All the more reason to get to her as fast as he could. If she was fighting in an amphibian insurgency, she urgently needed his help. "What happened afterwards?"</p><p>"The frogs retreated towards Wartwood! Please, that's all I know!" The toad flung his limbs in front of his face, trying in vain to ward Ant off.</p><p>"Don't worry, I believe you. Thank you for your cooperation."</p><p>The toad had relaxed somewhat, believing that he was about to be released. There was no reason to waste any more ammunition on him. Before the prisoner could react, Ant drove the knife his chest. Blood spurted through his fingers as he twisted the blade, tearing into the beating heart. The toad squirmed weakly, but soon went slack.</p><p>He wiped his hands on the toad's tunic. It had been a productive strike. Four dead hostiles, some scrounged camping supplies, and fresh information as to his sister's location. If he remembered his map correctly, Wartwood was due southeast, maybe twenty miles from where he stood.</p><p>Ant straightened up, sliding the newly-polished knife back into its sheath. There was a long walk ahead of him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>To followers of my ongoing longfic, Operation Eclipse, don't worry. I'll eventually get back to working on that. To those of you who came from the Amphibia side, why not check out my longfic? I usually put a lot more effort into that than this slapdash first draft which I wrote on a whim.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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